I (39F) often feel I am being scrutinized by my bf (40m) for seemingly insignificant things. On one hand I appreciate the honesty and ability to communicate when displeased, but on the other, I get frustrated because more often than not, I can recall a moment in the past where I was similarly displeased with him or caught him in a less than perfect moment but I chose to brush it off (pick your battles mentality)rather than make an ordeal of it. The problem is also compunded by the fact that I am very experienced in long term relationships where he is not. I guess what i’m trying to say, is on one hand, I highly value transparency, communication, and honesty, but am fed up with getting picked on for insignificant things like sleeping in on weekends after enduring an insanely stressful workweek, not acting excited excited about eatting at his choice of restaurant, or wanting to finish an episode of Eurphoria that I had started while he was downstairs doing his thing, lol. For reference he has a much more relaxed week than I, and pretty much gets to do whatever he wants (due to receiving a steady paycheck from a family business) and although I have never once eluded any kind of judgement upon his lifestyle, I will admit I think he takes for granted how lucky he is.
Now I admit, we are all set in our ways a little bit at this age, and thats fine. Again, I’m cool doing my thing, while he does his. But somehow although he is very self aware and seemingly emotionally intune, he has not seemed to grasp how so far this relationship has gone largely “his way”. By that I mean me always driving to see him on weekends but midweek he is too busy to see me, we always watch what he wants on tv (we’ll watch shows I dislike or am meh about but he won’t sit through a show he dislikes), or how he’ll ask me to stop and pick up food on my way over there, after an 8 hour workday, when he’s had a chill day. I’ve just been writing these things off to relationship inexperience, or flakiness (cause hey, I’ve been guilty of that) but maybe I’m kidding myself? Idk.
My point is, how do you find that fine line between open, honest communication and “not sweating the small stuff”? Last week we had a heart to heart and I told him I felt really judged by him and its hard for me to feel comfortable rn. This week I could sense he was upset about something, but I feel like I’m not going to get it out of him now, and honestly it’s driving me a little mad.
Well, hopefully my little blurb makes as much sense written down as it did in my head 😅🤪 Thoughts?
23 comments
Take it from my experience, not sweating the small stuff will build up over time into resentment and loss of feelings. I’ve been in your shoes overlooking things like that, like always watching their shows that I would never watch otherwise, always having to be the one to turn off lights and put away dishes, get glasses of water, etc.
It was a hard lesson learned for me to speak up, otherwise it will eat at you over time.
Stop catering to him, it’s obviously bothering you. Make sure your needs are met too. Pick at least 2 of these annoyances that you won’t cave on. Make boundaries. Ex.: Tell him Saturday morning you don’t exist until such&such time and don’t travel to him until after. Don’t pick up food on the way. Let him know that you are tired from work and just want to sit and recover and having to add to your day to grab food, when he could have is upsetting.
He’s not being honest and communicative, if he’s being pouty and stonewalling since you told him you were feeling uncomfortable and judged.
If he pushes back on those 2 boundaries that are already red flags in my book. Then walk and know he’s not right for you since he doesn’t realize what he has.
I wouldn’t be with someone who criticizes me for stuff that’s not hurting anyone. .
If you think this relationship is salvageable, I would stop apologizing or explaining your decisions.
“Yep! I’m sleeping in because I’ve had a hard week.”
If he’s giving you crap about watching your show after a long day, or for sleeping in on Saturday don’t be there after work or on Saturday mornings. See him when you have time.
If he isn’t willing to come to you when he has had a much easier day, see him on the weekend when it’s convenient for you. Say no to picking up food. Spend some weekends at home doing your thing. Tell him he can join if he’s willing to come out.
I would pull back some of your energy. He isn’t treating you right and it sounds like he’s learned he doesn’t have to.
I’ve been guilty of this too and I’m done!!
This doesn’t sound like small stuff. More like taking you for granted. Try talking with him, he might not even realise it.
First of all, very good that you had this heart to heart conversation with him about how you have the feeling that you are being judged. Based on his response (now not telling you what he is upset about) it seems that he does care about how you are feeling.
The problem now is that it is creating this additional tension where you notice he is upset but he is now just not telling you because he now knows you dislike being picked upon. Hiding how you are feeling is never the solution, now both of you are walking on eggshells.
What I would do in this situation is have another good heart to heart conversation. But this time place the emphasize on him. He is obviously bothered by some of the small stuff. But why? How does it make him feel when you sleep in on saterday? Why does he value that so much? Why is he having trouble with picking his mental battles?
This gives the opportunity for someone to express their feelings, without directly judging you for it.
It sounds like this guy is just plain spoiled. Drawing a paycheck from a family business that you heavily implied he doesn’t do much to earn, and not even attempting to be sensitive to the fact that you work much harder for your money is a huge red flag. Not that it’s rare for family business “scions” to act this way, but it is still counterproductive to relationships with “plebs.”
I bet he believes he works very hard and he earns every penny he makes. That he is in the position he is in because he is so intelligent and made the right moves instead of just being born lucky. I’ve dated a guy like this before, and, oh boy does it get old. He would keep me up until 4 in the morning babbling about his brilliance when I had to work at 9. He always talked about the family business that he barely touched like he was one of the main movers and shakers.
Considering how your guy appears to be overly concerned with you conforming to his lifestyle/is not even willing to watch a show you enjoy if he’s not crazy about it bodes very badly. His willingness to be like “and bring me some food while you’re at it” when you are traveling to him after a long day of work is not considerate either.
I know you are chalking up all this behavior to not having much relationship experience, but it sounds to me there’s a damn good reason why he hasn’t dated much. He is a “corrector” who feels entitled to tell people how to live their lives. He probably feels guilty, deep down, about how easy he has it, and gives you shit about things he perceives as “lazy” (sleeping in) because he hasn’t even considered that, maybe, some people have legitimate reasons to sleep in.
Stop making excuses and start judging his behavior on its merits. He’s not even trying to adapt to your presence in his life, and he expects you to conform to his expectations completely. These are early days, he’s only going to demonstrate more and more selfish behavior.
Most likely not worth it. The self-centeredness will become maddening.
Dude sounds kinda like my father. My father judges and picks on pretty insignificant things. Has this perception of how people “should” live their lives, though 99% of what he nit picks on has nothing to do with legality or morals. Shit like, wanting to take a nap in the middle of a Sunday will be met with “how can you be tried right now?” …like no other human is allowed to be tired if he isn’t personally tired himself at that moment apparently? About the only exception is a newborn baby or an elderly person with an illness. That’s it. Everyone else just, shouldn’t take a nap during the day.
That’s just one example of the kind of thing he’ll give people shit for. And not even in a funny or joking way. He’s dead serious, you’d almost wonder if he thinks taking a nap was as bad as cooking meth to sell to orphans. Normal people would see a loved one taking a nap and think, to themselves, “wow they must be tired, looks peaceful, hope they feel refreshed when they get up”. Not him though.
He’s always been like this. As his son, I deal with it and brush it off…it’s annoying as all hell though. I don’t engage in arguments most of the time and it’s easy for me to not really receive much of his (largely pointless) criticism. But father-son is it’s own dynamic. What I don’t understand is why any woman in a romantic relationship puts up with him.
And this isn’t some “well he hasn’t had relationships so that’s an excuse” thing. My mom was my father’s third wife, before he was 30 btw. His first marriage was at 18… My parents divorced 25 years ago after like a 15 year marriage, and while I’ll say thr marriage should have ended anyway, the “final straw” as it were was when he cheated with some woman from his past. And they were immediately together and he married her within a year of my parents divorce, and that lasted like 13 years until she died of cancer. I’m not exaggerating here but 6 months later he’s dating again, and he’s been with this one woman for the last 5 years (hopefully marriage isn’t on the table with this one but who knows). This man doesn’t know how to live a life being single.
Now, I was a bit too young to remember much of my parents marriage except the last year or so, but I do know and I’ve been around for his last marriage and this new relationship. He criticizes and pokes at them over petty shit too, more so than he has with me (possibly because I just happen to do some things more closer to how he thinks people should by accident). I can only imagine how constant it is. I hear enough of it either when I just happen to be around them both in person, or while they are on the phone. Even if he has a point or whatever, he usually says it in such a crappy way with no tact, or it’s been so much criticism of all these unimportant things that you just don’t want to deal with listening to something that might actually be important, at least when it comes to me I tune him out…
Well, for the life of me, I don’t understand why adult women well past their 40s, 50s…hell we are talking about 70 year olds now… women with college educations and had careers and all that going for them…they let this man talk to them this way and stay in a relationship with him. It’s fucking bizarre. I can’t call my father lazy or coasts along, he’s handy and shit and worked hard up until retirement, but those qualities don’t make up for how much of a know it all annoying jackhole he is (or I wouldn’t have thought so).
I don’t ever want to be in relationship where someone nitpicks at how someone else lives that has nothing to do with morals or anything. From either person. I don’t want to be that guy, I don’t want to date that woman. If there’s incompatible lifestyles like someone wants to nap on weekends vs going to CrossFit competitions, you don’t stay together and dog them for their naps (or dog them for their hobby choice)…either accept the difference as no big deal, or break up. That’s my viewpoint.
>how he’ll ask me to stop and pick up food on my way over there, after an 8 hour workday, when he’s had a chill day.
Oh, hell no.
Cognitive dissonance , i want you to be honest when it suits me and i like it or feel like it.
I don’t date people who make me feel like I’m always doing little things wrong. It’s a form of negging, they’re trying to keep your self esteem down.
I promise you not everyone’s like that. You deserve a partner who makes you feel like you do no wrong.
You both have a steady income, but yours is more important because your job is more stressful, and you get to use it as leverage in your relationship? No, that’s not how it works.
While you sleep in, are you expecting him to wait around for you, and waste part of his weekend? I’ll just go do my own thing. See ya on Monday, maybe.
I won’t sit through a TV show that I don’t like either. I don’t watch much TV, at all, but I do watch major sporting events, and I don’t expect my GF to sit with me. I’ll invite friends over to watch. GF is also welcome, and she often chooses to sit with me, but that’s her choice. It’s not leverage for me to watch her shows.
I also struggle with where to draw this line between communicating and nitpicking. I try to accept people for who they are, so I don’t speak up much. I don’t have answers, but perhaps talk to your partner about how you’re feeling and tell him to back off
I had this. Ended the relationship because he didn’t think there was a problem. He couldn’t handle the fact that I was relaxing and he was working.
This is a boundary and possible compatibility issue on YOUR behalf explicitly.
It’s YOUR responsibility to draw the line at how much people criticize you and make demands of you without taking your hardships into account.
You are allowed to say “While I understand that you may not like XYZ about me, I do have my own personal flaws and habits that are just my personality. I don’t need to hear you commentary on my quirks that you hate. You need to keep those opinions to yourself.”
There is a difference between someone ASKING you “hey I only have x amount of time that I’d like to spend with you this weekend. Can you try to not sleep in so that we can do “blah, blah blah” and “You sleep in too much, you’re soo lazy.”
Constant criticisms about your personality and flaws are not productive. Also you not speaking on on GENUINE things that you want or need is your problem. You keeping your negative opinions about his personal quirks to yourself is different than having genuine needs that aren’t being met that you’re ignoring to be “pitiable”.
You need to establish boundaries on how he speaks to you. If he can’t accept that you’re not going to be a perfect puppet that does everything to his exact liking, then he doesn’t get to be in a relationship with you specifically.
Start asking: how does this effect you or us?
Not saying to try to fight but to start a discussion.
That’s the cut-off for me. If I want to sleep in, I will sleep in. If my sleeping in makes it difficult to do work around the house, let’s find a solution.
Yeah, he seems a little weirdly judgy. I’m also a little unsettled by the “not acting excited about his choice of restaurant” like he has expectations for your emotions and how you display them? Feels weirdly controlling and egotistical to think that you should react to things the same way he does. Almost like he doesn’t understand that other people are different than him? Idk I may be reading into this, but trust your gut girl. Tell him he doesn’t seem to really like how you live your life & it must not be a good fit or something. I feel like he’s trying to see if he can mold to you be what he wants rather than understanding that you are a different person worthy of being appreciated exactly how you are.
I want to throw a challenging opinion out there, be more straightforward. I’m not there to witness your relationship and can only take way from what you said and what I can read into it.
Try to mimic your partners willingness to make a complaint, healthy relationships have to be able to acknowledge complaints. I learned this strategy that has helped me in life from a relationship counselor, “I feel X, when you did Y, and I’m asking for Z in the future.” That is a good way to start a conversation about how you feel. Maybe they didn’t notice and change, maybe the two of you compromise, and maybe you just disagree and have to decide how to tolerate that. I’m reading in, but what I hear with don’t sweat the small stuff is avoiding conflict. Conflict is normal and can be handled healthily.
Could be way off base and hope this helps.
My ex was always criticizing me for things to didn’t really matter like drinking too much soda, sleeping in late on my day off even though I work 70 hours a week, always wanting to eat the same foods, just stuff it doesn’t really matter and didn’t really affect him and didn’t hurt anybody. Honestly it became a dealbreaker and I just couldn’t deal with it anymore.
This sounds a a bit like narcissistic behaviour on his part. My ex used to always have a comment on the small things like this and it was especially triggering reading how he is bothered my your lack of excitement at his favourite restaurant. Be careful with this one. If you start to feel mentally exhausted listen to your gut.
I agree with comments that it’s got flavours of egotistical, immature and controlling. I’d also say unstable emotional regulation.
Because, it reminds me of a guy I dated who also needed me to drive to him and took it for granted, wouldn’t tolerate shows he didn’t approve of but made me watch videos on factory manufacturing of components, was very particular about his needs, needed me to do all his hobbies and wake when he did, sleep when he did, eat when he did. Even drink takeaway coffee when he did (bizarre!) because he felt uncomfortable if he was drinking while I let mine cool. Always had little things that would set him off with me and others.
Exhausting. Found out he couldn’t keep a relationship and had been accused of being controlling, and immature many times before by other women which he was oddly honest about haha.
I think how your partner makes you feel is huge. Ridgid, inflexible personalities create difficult people and it’s unlikely to change.
I feel like the problem is you guys have different definitions of small stuff and what should be let go.
I also don’t feel like you really want open communication. You want him to think on the same level as you do about what needs to be discussed and what can be let go. But if you really valued transparency on open communication, you would want that even if you don’t like what he has to say.
But you even say you told him you feel judged by him, so he is obviously holding something back, and now you are upset about that too. It seems like a lot of inconsistencies
It’s not a good sign if doesn’t make you feel good. Our intuition is generally (always) spot on. Stick with your gut and talk to him about it. If he gets upset he might not be the one for you unfortunately.
I think it’s important to draw your boundaries really clearly with this stuff. So good on you for trying to analyze where the boundary should be, instead of just letting it roll.
They key thing here is that it is going to depend a lot on what works for you and what doesn’t, so it’s hard for any of us to tell you where your line needs to be.
Here’s my best go at it —- I draw the line precisely where things become uncomfortable for me. You were right to express that you felt judged, and if you now get the sense that he’s taken that to mean he can’t express frustration anymore…that especially begs the following questions:
What value is his expression actually providing? Is he expressing his frustration toward you because he’s being impacted somehow, or is he criticizing you for things that do not impact him whatsoever? Does he actually value what your needs are in the first place? Does he accept who you are and care about your comfort and happiness, or does he want you to be different than you are, for the purpose of his own satisfaction? Why is it that he feels the need to direct your actions?
If you want to give him the benefit of the doubt (because I’m just an outsider looking in, and responding based on what you’ve written here), the one thing you could try to do differently is express your feelings about putting in effort and not getting reciprocated. I don’t expect you’ve outlined the entire context of your relationship here, but if that were the case then what you’ve written sounds incredibly one-sided in his favor. It doesn’t sound like you have many positive things to say about this connection in the first place.
And even if there are positives — if you try to have adult conversations about this stuff with him, and he is unable or unwilling to have them with you, and now acts upset but won’t talk about it with you…well that’s not a good sign. I don’t know how you progress from there unless he comes to the table with an open mind and starts to demonstrate that your needs matter to him.